MARIN COUNTY / An inside look at who jumps

Conventional wisdom has it that people who commit suicide on the Golden Gate Bridge travel from around the globe to end their lives in San Francisco Bay, but a new study of death leaps shows that the average jumper is a 41-year-old white man from the Bay Area.

The study, released on Monday by Marin County Coroner Ken Holmes, whose office handles most deaths from the bridge, showed that over 85 percent of the people who jump are Bay Area residents. The average jumper was 41.7 years old; men outnumber women nearly 3 to 1; and whites account for 83 percent of the dead, Holmes found in his review of data from January 1996 to July 26 of this year.

The study reverses a long-held policy among government officials to refrain from publicizing the number of bridge suicides. Authorities have held that copycat behavior could be prevented if the media would not report on suicides at the bridge. In 1995, the California Highway Patrol stopped counting as the 997th official suicide was tallied. A race to be the 500th jumper occurred in October 1973.

Holmes said he decided the time had come to distribute the information because of debate over building a suicide barrier at the bridge and because the number of suicides is holding steady or in some years increasing slightly.

"My thinking was, originally, that if none of that was in the paper, people would not necessarily be encouraged to go to the bridge," he said. "Over time, the numbers never really changed, even though there was nothing in the paper. The downside of not making a count was there was nothing in the public eye about the number of people taking their life there."

More than 1,250 suicides have occurred from the bridge over the past 70 years, spurring renewed efforts to study a barrier to prevent them. A consultant's two-part feasibility study ordered by the Golden Gate Bridge District has shown a barrier could be built without harming the structural integrity of the iconic suspension span, the world's No. 1 bridge-suicide magnet.

A draft environmental review is due in fall and a final decision on whether to build a barrier could occur next spring.

The coroner's numbers were released in conjunction with the Bridge Rail Foundation, which works to educate the public about suicide at the bridge. Holmes is a member of the nonprofit's board, which supports a barrier.

On average, two people per month jump to their deaths from the bridge, Holmes said, but the number has recently increased to nearly three a month. In 2006, 34 suicides were recorded, the highest since the mid-1990s. Bridge officials earlier this year suggested that increased media attention - including The Chronicle's seven-part "Lethal Beauty" series in 2005 and Eric Steel's documentary "The Bridge," which captured death leaps from the span - may have spurred the increase.

But historically, for unknown reasons, the death toll fluctuates: It approached 40 several times in the 1970s, '80s and '90s.

"It's a surprise to me that this number is going up, and I don't think the public knows it," said Holmes, a 32-year veteran of the department.

His report also noted that San Francisco and Marin counties had the highest number of victims, followed by Santa Clara and Contra Costa counties. The youngest was a 14-year-old girl and the oldest was an 84-year-old man. The report also noted that 76 percent of all jumps were witnessed by tourists or commuters.

Mary Currie, a bridge district spokeswoman, said release of the figures was important.

"It's good that we all know the data," she said. "Our job is to remain vigilant in preventing as many suicides as we can."